I'm staring at this wiring and it almost makes sense why it is the way it is, but I can't quite work out how to take it apart.

Background:

I have two ugly ceiling ceiling fans my 30' x 18' living/eating area. The house was built in 1982 and I'm guessing on was once a dining light and the other room light. I never use the fans, and don't really even use the lights because I prefer my lamps. I did, however, install a dimmer on it a long time ago. Whenever I have used the lights, the switch gets very hot, which worries me.

I want to replace the fans with fixtures and have the lights on separate dimmers. I can expand the gang box to accommodate it, no problem.

Dilemma:

Looking at the wiring, there are two sets coming in and one set going out. I've attached a picture (I hope). I took off the ground so you can see better. One of the black coming in (top left) and the one going out (bottom left) are on one terminal, and the other black coming in (top right) is on the other terminal, and the three whites are twisted together (yellow wire nut).

If I'm understanding the circuits correctly, to use two switches I would treat the two incoming just like individuals, one black and one white from each, and then pigtail the outgoing so there's a set for each. Right? Or is there something about this wiring scheme that I'm not getting? electricity makes me nervous.

This is a straight forward deal ... I drew a wiring diagram for you showing ONLY the black (hot) wires for simplicity. The white (neutral) wires are all joined in one wire nut. The grounds are tied together from the switches (pigtail) to the grounds from the romex.

You need to identify your power leg, then build the connections from there. Hope this does the trick!